Two Vietnamese-American educators are among the 75 winners of the prestigious Milken Family Foundation for 2007. The awards were given out at a banquet in L.A. yesterday.
Social studies teacher John B. Nguyen (photo right), of James Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Connecticut, used innovative methods that are data-driven and helped students raise their scores on the state’s academic performance test (CAPT).
Nearer to the Bolsavik, math teacher Aaron Chung (photo left), a Vietnamese-American of Chinese descent, of Temple Intermediate School in Rosemead, California, established an Algebra Academy and helped his students, many of whom are Asian and Hispanic immigrants classified as English language learners (ELL) achieve proficiency on California’s math test. The Algebra Academy and other innovations by Chung helped Temple jump from being the district’s lowest-achieving school five years ago to the district’s top campus academically.
Each received a cash prize of $25,000.
When asked what he would do with the money, Chung said he already established several scholarships for college students in Vietnam. He also asked a friend to take him around Saigon on a motorbike, and just randomly stop and give poor people money, 100,000 Vietnamese dong each (about $7).
Read more about Nguyen here, and about Chung here.
